


crystal notions, human clay

by akitania (spacehairdresser)



Category: Machineries of Empire Series - Yoon Ha Lee
Genre: Calendrical Heresy, F/F, Politics, Priority: Personal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-08 12:10:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12864240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacehairdresser/pseuds/akitania
Summary: Neatly blinded, a ninefox made a hollow threat. Hand wrapped around a hand that held a pistol, Vahenz did not.





	crystal notions, human clay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alona/gifts).



**Fortress of Scattered Needles, Analysis  
** **Priority:** Normal  
**From:** Vahenz afrir dai Noum  
**To:** Heptarch Liozh Zai  
**Calendrical Minutiae:** Year of the Fatted Cow, Month of the Chicken, make it Day of the Sheepdog. Would that I had one here.

I suspect you won’t even read this paragraph, my dear Zai, but I nonetheless congratulate you on your performance yesterday. Not that it was a performance, of course; in my first language, there is a stronger connotation of truth in the word. It’s a term I often think of in connection with your speeches. But I am no rhetorician, and you have some moral repulsion to praise, so I’ll move on to more critical matters.

As stirring as your speech was — even to me, imagine! — it doesn’t resolve the issue of Stoghan’s recklessness. I appreciate a certain taste for blood, but his disregard for sound analysis is off-putting. And my analysis, as you know, is nothing if not sound. In any case, particularly after yesterday’s vote, you hold rather more clout with his contingent than I do, and I would appreciate it if you could make an attempt to get through the impregnable fortress that is his skull and remind him that I am not here for decoration. Don’t laugh, Zai; I will be wounded.

(I, personally, have contrived several ways to penetrate that thick head, but none of them would have left him available for further use. I’d argue that he’s not of any use currently, but I know you disagree.)

Regardless, the favor I ask is that you use your considerable influence to uplift this data I’ve been spending so much time on. Not everyone trusts me as you do (again, spare my feelings and hold back the urge to smile). Xenophobia is a strange trait for heretics, but I suppose these are strange times. Strange, and with a streak of kitschy pastoralism, don’t you think? What a homely calendar.

Well, ask to see my diagrams for making contact with Stoghan if you ever need to relieve stress. Or, more pertinent, if you ever manage to admit that you need to relieve stress. Actually, I can think of some more tasteful options that even you wouldn’t find decadent, but if I flagged this as personal I fear you wouldn’t read it in any timely manner.

Yours in calendrical heresy,  
Vh.

 

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven — nearly a miss, but not quite. Eight. Nine.

Vahenz was an excellent shot, as she’d bragged. There was little hesitation in her movements, and less flair; an uncharacteristic concession to spartan precision. She hadn’t been lying, either, about the targets, a row of leering ninefoxes, one left sightless by the nonary ring of scorches.

Zai suppressed a shudder.

“Proficient work for someone who so dislikes the military,” she said, only just loud enough to be heard. The firing range wasn’t busy, but neither was it empty, and something made her permanently wary of public conversations with Vahenz.

She reminded herself to note later how quick Vahenz was on the draw. It would be useful information to have on file.

Vahenz, for her part, smiled in her way that indicated she wasn’t meant to be taken seriously for a moment. “It’s your culture I despise, not armed forces in general.” Heresy on top of heresy, as was her habit. “I have a healthy appreciation for more personal violence, and so should you. Come.”

Zai was not dressed for shooting, her silks too heavy and restrictive. It was, she realized, embarrassingly revealing that she would have come to the range with no intention to practice herself. Against both her better instincts and the structure of her tunic, she rolled up her sleeves.

The pistol was warm when Vahenz passed it off to her. Naturally; scorch pistols held their heat, but it was the warmth of her hand that she noticed. Revealing, revealing.

Another target shuttered into the place of the perforated one, eyes bright. Zai was not a natural markswoman, but she’d been a soldier once. On the defensive, but still. She could handle herself.

One. Two. Three — a miss. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight — another. Nine.

When Vahenz reached around to steady her arm, Zai took a moment to remind herself that she couldn’t accuse her of stealing moves from dramas without admitting to watching them herself. It would also be immature to roll her eyes, even if no one could see, so she satisfied herself with a pointed sigh. An irredeemable flirt. She doubted Vahenz actually thought breathing down her neck would make her a better shot.

Yet: One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.

Neatly blinded, a ninefox made a hollow threat. Hand wrapped around a hand that held a pistol, Vahenz did not.

Her thumb brushed over Zai’s knuckles as she congratulated her.

 

Later, she undid her braids with ritual care, gold pins clustered into a pile on the vanity. When loose, her hair reached near her waist, curls regimented by the impressions of its typical plaits. On one of her embroidered sofas, Vahenz nibbled at a pastry, reclined and watching Zai with discomfiting interest.

“You’re quite striking,” she offered. “Even like this.”

Zai let her voice go leaden with sarcasm. “Oh, thank you,” she said. “Your aesthetic input is the foundation of our alliance, after all.”

Vahenz almost choked in laughter, but managed to scoff, “Please don’t try cynicism, my dear. It’s antithetical to your appeal.” When Zai didn’t respond, just returned to the work of undoing her hair, she added, “I have numbers to support it.”

But of course.

Vahenz always insisted that personal rendezvous took place in her own apartments, which Zai had once naively assumed to be out of an aversion to her ascetic tastes. It occurred to her later to order a more thorough anti-surveillance investigation of her own property. Surely Vahenz would tell Zai if she were under observation, but it wasn’t like her to be paranoid, either.

(Though her rooms were opulent, Zai had found herself coming around to them. Vahenz did have taste.)

“Do tell me the name of your tailor,” Vahenz said, an index finger circling a filigreed button on Zai’s discarded jacket. The motion was only somewhat obscene, in context.

Zai told her, and, business of her braids completed, joined Vahenz. There was not room for her to sit comfortably while Vahenz lay, but she was not sitting for long.

"Tell me something else," Vahenz said later, fingers in Zai's hair. "Why do you trust me?"

Zai let her eyes fall shut. "Do you think I do?"

"Here you are." She felt Vahenz's lips on her cheek, likely more patronizing than affectionate. If she kept her eyes closed, it was one calculation she didn't need to make. 

For a moment, then, she could pretend that as long as she held this in suspension, Vahenz would do the same. "Here we are," she conceded.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Yours in calendrical heresy,  
> [anon].


End file.
